


23 Hours

by TheBasilRathbone



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Gigi Finds Out, Team Figi, rated teen for a bit of swearing, the waiting game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-12 01:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15985163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBasilRathbone/pseuds/TheBasilRathbone
Summary: Gigi finds out that Darcy is at the Bennets' by watching episode 97. Like. a. common. fan. So naturally, she decides to send him a message on every platform available to her and continue to do so until she gets a response.





	23 Hours

_Okay, so I know I said I'd stay out of it, but have you called her?_

_William, answer your phone._

_Just tell me that you've contacted her. Then I won't ask any more._

_William?_

* * *

Despite receiving a pinging notification on her phone several hours ago, she hadn't been able to actually do anything about it until now, nearly eight o'clock at night. Like her elder brother, she had decided to turn off all social media notifications. Besides, of course, Lizzie's video uploads. And so this notification could only mean one thing. After a thirteen hour work day, this was exactly what she needed.

Gigi pulled off her heels as soon as she closed the door to her office and immediately went to YouTube. William had been forced to fly to Chicago after some new clients got Not Happy about Darcy's sudden neglect of the project (he'd had far more important things to deal with, like ensuring that Lydia Bennet's future aspirations would not be marred by an idiot) and they wouldn't be soothed until he flew out there himself to set things right. Honestly, there was a reason she was a designer. Clients were perpetually frustrating and difficult, she'd much rather stay in her office. 

Unfortunately, the sudden trip to Chicago had left William apparently unreachable. She had promised him that she wouldn't stick her nose into his business, but all communication attempts had been ignored. She wasn't sure if he was even still in Chicago. At least, until she saw Lizzie's video. 

It started off like any other upload. Any hopes she'd had upon hearing the leading first question had been dashed when Charlotte arrived. But then pair began discussing William and his absence, much to Gigi's anger. He hadn't called her back in three days?! She was so obviously into him. Gigi knew it, Charlotte knew it. Anyone could see it. But William was infinitely self-conscious, Lizzie could probably smother him in kisses and he'd still not be ready to-

_Excuse me, Lizzie._

Oh. Shit. He was there? He was there?! This was filmed on her birthday, which was yesterday, which meant William Darcy had been at the Bennets' for almost a whole day and he hadn't told her?! 

She logged on to Twitter, and was immediately flooded. People had tagged her, DM'd her, generally gone bat-shit crazy about why she hadn't said anything, yet. She hadn't even seen it! She retweeted the video to at least stop Lizzie's fans from trying to get her attention before turning her efforts back onto William.

She called him. Called him again. And again. Texted him four times. Waited. DM'd him. Emailed him. Tweeted at him. NOTHING. At least Fitz responded to her flurry of messages with his own, though he wasn't any more successful at contacting William than she had been. 

Oh, there would be hell to pay.

* * *

_Are you kidding me?! PICK UP YOUR PHONE!_

_Hey @wmdarcy! Stop being lame and answer your sister's messages! WE ARE RELATED!_

_Answer me answer me answer me answer me answer me answer me answer me._

_I swear on all that is holy, if you don't tell me what is going on RIGHT NOW, so help me..._

* * *

She wasn't always this invested in his love life. Mostly because she wasn't a total weirdo, partly because he didn't really have much of a love life to begin with. He had dated the same girl for about two and a half years in high school and into freshmen year. But after her and William's parents died suddenly, the girl decided that it was no fun dating a guy who was too busy cooking dinner and helping his eleven-year-old sister with her math homework to go out and party. Gigi had been young at the time, but later she would wonder how anyone could bear the death of their parents, guardianship of their little sibling, George Wickham's greed, and a break-up in the span of a few months. 

He hadn't sworn-off girls, exactly, but Fitz and Gigi had secretly theorized that he wasn't quite willing to trust anyone in that aspect of his life. Being dumped after your parents died for being a 'downer' was a reasonable excuse to be cautious. If there were a few dates here-and-there, William didn't share them with her.

Once Caroline Lee started sniffing around, she thought he might cave. Caroline was beautiful, stylish, witty, and had an equally biting sense of humour. She had always been friendly with Gigi, but Gigi had sensed a coldness there that unnerved her. She was a bit...snobbish, sometimes. That wasn't a crime, of course, but it had a tendency to rub her the wrong way. She had always suspected that William might have had similar reservations, but he had always just told her that  _I don't feel that way about her. Besides, to explore a romantic relationship without strong promise could easily end in bad blood. I have no desire to risk my friendship with Bing for his sister._

But that had changed when her brother had joined the Lees in Central California during the summer. Along with a smattering of new names, she heard one in particular often enough to peak her interest. 

"So, who's Lizzie?" she had asked him over the phone one night as he related recent events to her. 

There had been a long moment of silence, and then, "am I really so obvious?"

He hadn't  _gushed,_ so to speak, but he had opened up to Gigi about how he had tried to brush-off his initial attraction to no avail. He wasn't even sure why, but he was interested in her. Not just in the potential-to-date sort of way, but as in genuinely curious about what made her tick. 

"So...you're going to ask her out?"

"Gigi," he had scolded. "I have a company to run. It's bad enough being set out like a meal to the vultures as a bachelor here, I really don't have time to dodge her insane mother and try to make a long-distance relationship work when I'm back home."

But those feelings apparently hadn't gone away. He continuously dropped her name into conversations in the weeks that followed his return to San Francisco, peaking not only her interest in this girl but Fitz's, as well. She had decided to give William his privacy, it had been less than a year since the George-fiasco and she wasn't willing to risk their good but still-fragile relationship by prying, though cyber-stalking the girl was tempting. She refrained, however, but still managed to get some good gossip in with Fitz, despite the utter lack of information they had. 

William had been so determined not to embroil her in his love-life and remain nonchalant that it was Fitz, not Darcy, who had texted her after their dinner at Aunt Catherine's house on their journey back up to San Francisco. 

_Ooooo shiiiiiiiit, girl. Guess who's at de Bourgh's?_

_Who?_

_Give you a hint. Starts with 'L,' rhymes with 'fizzy...'_

After seeing her at dinner, William had apparently volunteered his services to go over Aunt Catherine's latest investment with a fine-toothed comb, and had promptly spent the next two days apologizing to Fitz for impulsively dragging him into this, though of course Fitz was more than willing to have a front-row seat. 

It had all seemed to be going so well! Until, of course, it suddenly wasn't. 

William had returned in a dark mood that didn't seem to lift. Fitz had given her a brief run-down, whatever he knew, and left the rest up to William to divulge. 

They had spent Thanksgiving together, just the two of them, and when the meal was cleaned up and they were both relaxing in the living room with a glass of wine in hand, she finally worked up the courage to say, "tell me what happened."

It had come pouring out. 

"I was so wrong. How could I have been so wrong? She hates me, Gigi."

"Of course she doesn't."

"She told me that I was arrogant, proud, selfish, and the last man on earth that she would ever fall in love with."

Ouch. 

How could anyone get him so wrong? He had given up his early adulthood to essentially become a single parent. He missed countless nights out with friends to attend her tennis matches and choir recitals. He had paid off George Wickham, withstood the tortuous insults she had hurled at him again and again, and told her there was nothing to forgive as he cradled her on the floor of his kitchen after she had completely broken down and begged his forgiveness. 

"She has this...video series. Video blogs. For her grad school thesis project, documenting her life. I didn't know. But I watched them all. She talks again and again about how appalling my behaviour was, interpreting my ever word as...insulting and offensive. They're awful, Gigi. I've been awful."

He begged her not to watch them, but she had spent enough of the last year tiptoeing around him to preserve their fragile truce. So she does anyways.

A warning would have been nice. 

After she spent the night crying at the startling appearance of George Wickham and his charming manipulation, she had pulled herself together enough to confront William about the videos. She thought he would be angry that she watched them, upset that she had exposed herself to Wickham again, but instead he had begged her forgiveness. Unexpected. He confessed to telling Lizzie about why he and George no longer spoke, wanting to clear his name and ensure that Lizzie wouldn't be drawn into the same trap that Gigi had been. 

"Despite what occurred between us, I trust her to keep your confidences and not put everything out online. I understand that it wasn't a choice that you got to make-"

"I trust her, too."

As irksome as it was being kept in the dark yet again under the guise of protection, Gigi had to admit, she understood both sides, as William now did. 

All of those shy traits, that over-protective tendency, that nervousness in crowds of strangers that would have developed had he spent time with people his own age and not at middle-school tennis matches...it could come across as cold snobbishness. He was so used to side-stepping woman after his name and wealth that he had no idea how to pursue someone who wasn't initiating. 

 _You have a checklist of what makes an accomplished woman!_ Lizzie had lamented to him, and Gigi had to cringe.

Typical William, trying to wrap himself (and everyone else) up in a cocoon to avoid getting hurt. After George's bad intentions and Caroline's manipulative advances, William clearly wanted someone who was his intellectual, financial, social, and even physical equal to such an obsessive degree that she wouldn't be impressed in the slightest by anything about him, and would want him for  _him_ _._ A defence mechanism, and a faulty one. 

Evidently. 

As much as Gigi had wanted to hate Lizzie for devastating her big brother, she couldn't. Lizzie was hilarious, and clever, and really, really witty. She cared desperately for her loved ones. Her siblings spent their down time sending one another care packages. Honestly, how sweet is that?

She was William's dream girl. Not the 'I have impossible standards so that I can engage safely with people without getting hurt' dream girl, but the exact type that was outgoing enough to soothe his discomfort in social situations, intelligent enough to challenge him, genuine enough that he wouldn't have to doubt her, and caring enough that she could ease some of the burden of responsibility that was too much for anyone to bear alone. 

He needed her. 

But Gigi didn't know how to fix things. They didn't so much as talk about it again until an email from HR showed up in her inbox, informing the staff that a new intern would be joining them for a few weeks in January. All of her problems were solved. 

Screw coincidence, this was  _fate._ William Darcy was a good man, and the universe was compelled to throw him and Lizzie together until her misconceptions had been corrected. 

He was still as shy and self-conscious and awkward as he had been last summer, but this time, William had the express advantage of having Gigi and Fitz on his side. 

And things had improved drastically, until that dreaded phone call that had Lizzie packed and on a plane in a manner of hours. 

Gigi, William, and Fitz had worked tirelessly to shut down the website, and with not a day to spare.

And all of it, all this time, all of this aching and longing and hoping, had led them to this: Gigi desperately trying to get ahold of her brother and him not answering.

She knew he was there. She, along with tens of thousands of other viewers, had seen his torso appear on screen, heard his voice. 

_Excuse me, Lizzie._

She needed an explanation, and soon. She was ready to burst with anticipation. 

* * *

"Gigi, forgive me. My phone has been off."

She was so resigned to not hear from William that when the video-call notification came up, she had nearly missed it. And then nearly dropped her phone in her frantic attempts to answer it. 

"Where the hell have you been?! Why have you not called me? I'm having a heart attack!" He looked to be sitting outside, some sort of greenery behind him visible but not easy to discern from the close-up shot of his face. 

"I assume you watched her video."

"What do you think?" Gigi abandoned her attempts to cook dinner and instead settled on the sofa in her apartment, nearly vibrating with anticipation. "Well?"

"We...talked. Cleared the air. To be able to get everything out in the open was...a relief. I didn't realize to the extent it was all weighing on me." She had seen the bags under his eyes, she believed it. 

"And? You had to have done more than clear the air if you're still there."

"You can find out on Thursday when she posts her next video."

The deadpan delivery was only ruined by a slight quirk of his lip, and she groaned in frustration. "William Darcy, I am your  _sister_! I am not a common fan. I should get insider information! Behind-the-scenes stuff!"

"Gigi, the entirety of her time at Pemberly that wasn't on-camera was behind-the-scenes. You've seen a great deal of insider information already."

"You're so infuriating," she said, though tried to smile so he knew she said it with fondness. She still wanted to be careful with their relationship. It was stronger than it had been in a long time, but she wasn't willing to risk a fracture like that again. "Please tell me."

"Well, I managed to extend my trend of atrocious timing and arrived on her birthday to interrupt her celebrations with Charlotte Lu."

Gigi winced. "I saw the tweet. Didn't go over well?"

"She was gracious about it," he assured. "She...thanked me. For what happened with Lydia. I said I would extend the thanks to you and Fitz as I didn't do it all alone."

"Of course," Gigi replied, brushing off his words. "And? Did she fall into your arms and confess her love?"

"Rather the other way around, I'm afraid."

"What?!" 

There was a hissing noise on the other side of the phone, and Gigi watched as William's gaze lifted from his phone to beyond it, smiling softly. Gigi would later realize that this was the sound of a sliding glass door opening, but Lizzie had appeared on her screen before she could process it all. 

"Are you talking to Gigi? Hey, Gigi!" Lizzie waved, and William tilted the screen upwards so that her head was in frame. 

Gigi tried to smile, but the anticipation of it all probably made it come across more like a pained grin. "Hey," she croaked, silent for a few long moments before blurting out, "oh, could the two of you just put me out of my misery and tell me what the hell is going on?"

"What do you mean?" Lizzie asked innocently, blinking wide-eyed. Her hands, however, came to William's shoulders, where they slid downwards to his chest, her head tilting to rest her cheek on the top of his head. For just a brief, barely-discernible moment, William's eyes slipped shut. He took a breath. Bliss. 

Gigi let out a rush of air, falling back against the sofa, letting her phone dangle to the side. 

"Gigi?" Lizzie called, voice full of humour. "You know I expected a lot more squealing. Or any squealing."

"You think I have energy to squeal? I'm exhausted! You two were way too much work, I need a nap." She lifted her phone again to see that Lizzie had now taken the seat beside William, leaning into his side as she peered at the phone. 

"Well, we're sorry to have disturbed you," William mused, downright beaming. She don't think she had seen him smile like that since before the George Wickham fiasco. Maybe even since before the death of their parents. 

"You should be sorry for not contacting me for days! Also, sorry about all of the texts. And calls. And emails. And tweets. Really, if you see something from me you can just delete it, now."

"Good to know, I'll be sure to do that." Lizzie was giggling beside him, looking just as pleased as he did. 

She sighed. "I should really go back and help my mother. I've brought a boy home, and now she's losing her mind trying to impress him with her cooking. I surprised her the first time he came for dinner and she had only made  _casserole._ Oh, the horror." Lizzie managed to tear her gaze away from William to smile at Gigi. "It was nice talking to you. And thank you, for everything." She rose and then paused, holding her hand up to the phone to blacken the camera before giving William a kiss (between her fingers, Gigi saw the tops of their heads moving together) and then she was gone. 

"Oh my God," Gigi said (with maybe just a little bit of squealing. "I don't even know what to say."

"I don't either," he confessed, blushing. "I don't deserve this."

"Nobody deserves it more," she said quickly, and then, feeling a little too emotional, said, "I saw that Bing moved to New York with Jane."

"Yes," William said. "Another part of my retribution. He deserved to know."

"And now?" Gigi asked. "Your friend is happy and living in New York, you have Lizzie, all of Pemberly's clients are happy and ironed out. So what's next?"

"I'll have to come back to San Francisco in a few days," he replied with a frown. "I've been neglecting my duties there, but I'm reluctant to leave here. Perhaps I can tempt Lizzie to San Francisco."

"Please do," she begged.

William's eyes flickered up above his phone again, and he turned his attention back on her apologetically. "I should go. The Bennets already have reason enough to hate me. Being late for dinner because I was on my phone wouldn't help."

She smiled. "The Bennets seem like the type of people who prioritize family over everything else. I think they'd understand a call to your sister.  _But_  I'll let you go as long as you promise me to actually start messaging me back instead of ignoring me again!"

He had the decency to look sheepish. "Forgive me. I wanted Lizzie to have my full attention after the mess I've made of things before, but in my attempts to communicate better with her, I've forgotten about everyone else."

"You're allowed to be excited about a new relationship," she told him. "You're not eighty, as much as you might act like it sometimes. Just enjoy yourself, okay?"

"I'll try," William assured with a shy smile. "Thank you. For all that you've done. As irritating as it was at the time, I cannot thank you enough for forcing us to interact."

She beamed. "You don't have to thank me. I can't even begin to thank you for everything you've done for me. Now go stuff your face will casserole and charm the pants off of your girlfriend's family."

"I think it's salmon, tonight, actually. Or...lamb?"

"Either way, I'm having canned soup for dinner, so either one of those sound wonderful."

William just smiled. "Mrs. Bennet has already invited you and me for Christmas. I must say, she's a fabulous cook."

"Oh my Goooooood, tell her I love her."

He grinned. "I love  _you_ , Gigi."

"Love you, too."

* * *

_Fiiiiiiiiitz! Did you see the new video?_

_You mean the one of my boi kissing the face off of Lizzie B? Indeed I did._

_I guess we'll have to retire Team FiGi._

_Retire? They ain't married yet, girl._


End file.
